


Guilt

by Anonymous



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, Current Events, Gen, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:40:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23565442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Ukraine thinks about her siblings and where she went wrong.
Relationships: Belarus & Russia & Ukraine (Hetalia), Belarus & Ukraine (Hetalia), Russia & Ukraine (Hetalia)
Kudos: 4
Collections: Anonymous





	Guilt

_ Where did I go wrong? _

The burning question has haunted Ukraine for centuries.

She loves her siblings, of course, with all of her heart: Russia is her sweet— although, not so sweet at the moment— little brother that has trouble making friends, and Belarus is her beautiful baby sister with a slight big-brother complex. It's not that bad; they can recover, she'll make  _ sure _ they will... Or, at least, that's what she tells herself. It's what she's been telling herself for centuries: to be exact, since the day their father, Kievan Rus', passed away, but her efforts to help her siblings have always been fruitless. She knows that there isn't much she can do now, since their formative years are  _ ages _ behind them.  _ I wonder if it's my fault, _ Ukraine thinks,  _ or if they ended up this way because of the _ other  _ environments they were raised in. _ She remembers something, and chuckles ruefully.  _ No, no, it's _ definitely  _ my fault. My father's dying words were: _ Take care of your siblings, Ukraine. Make sure that any trouble they encounter, any wars they fight in, any detrimental order they are given by their leader... make sure that they have the strength to not let it break them.  _ I promised him that I would do whatever I could, and I _ obviously  _ didn’t. _ Ukraine, eyes watering, wanders to her couch and wraps a blanket around herself.  _ Although, I could entertain the thought that the other environments they were raised in should be the ones that take the blame. _

Russia's childhood was frigid and grueling, full of cruel and vicious bosses, bloodshed, being bullied by other countries, and forced servitude. His bosses did unspeakably horrible things to the people of many countries, including his own, to get allies. For the most part, they did, in fact, “succeed,” but only because the other countries were forced into it. At some point, this way of making “friends” started rub off on Russia because of its “success.” He had no idea that what he was doing was wrong; he just wanted to make a friend! Unfortunately, since he was young, eager, and easily influenced, he didn't think about the  _ method _ as much as the “ _ outcome _ ” and started to try it. After trying to make friends with many other countries this way, he has unknowingly made them deeply afraid of him. To this day, he tries to build camaraderie with others this way, because nobody ever told him that being violent is not how you make friends.

Belarus, however, had a much happier childhood— at least, by comparison. The more formative parts of her life were the few decades after she was born and the late eighteenth century— she appeared to be somewhere between sixteen and seventeen, both mentally and physically, to an unsuspecting human by then— up to the present. Ukraine doesn't remember much of her sister's childhood, something she's always been saddened by, but she does remember that, when Belarus appeared to be about six years old, Lithuania took her in— and Poland in later years. Belarus led a spoiled and luxurious life, as far as the standards in the Middle Ages go, at Lithuania's house: she ate every day, was groomed and washed, and wore what was current at the time. She wasn't always happy, however; she was deeply concerned about her brother, who she rarely saw, and took for granted all of the privileges she had gained when she lived with Lithuania and Poland. She went through a lot of emotional turmoil during those few centuries, and, when Belarus was taken over by Imperial Russia in 1795, she developed a deep attachment to her brother, which gradually turned into an extremely unhealthy and frightening obsession. It got so bad that Belarus started begging him to marry her so that they would never be apart, to which, of course, he said no. However, she, in Russia's words, is “very tenacious” and ended up becoming so desperate for the two to be wed that she started being around him nearly twenty-four hours a day. She even broke down his front door at one point because the doorknob “dared to separate them,” and became vicious and hateful towards Ukraine— _ her own sister _ — because Russia paid more attention to her. This caused her siblings— and mostly every other country— to fear her greatly.

Ukraine is sobbing as she thinks about the state her brother and sister are in. She blames herself for it: at some point in her childhood, she took a wrong turn, at some point in her childhood, she—

_ Wait. _

  
Her train of thought screeches to a halt. How old was she when Kievan Rus' passed away? She remembers: she only appeared to be about nine years old, both physically and mentally, when she was forced to become the caretaker of her siblings. Centuries of anguish melt away as she realizes that how her siblings turned out could not possibly be her fault—  _ she was a child raising other children. _ How could she have known how to raise a child if she was one herself? Ukraine feels an enormous anvil of guilt being lifted off her chest, and smiles genuinely for the first time that day.


End file.
